Electric Cars coming in a year or two

We actually have charging points in all the main car parks in the city centre here, Two per level in one of them.

Only ever seen one in use though (Nissan leaf) and some poor guy with a ticket for parking his bmw in one.
 
paradigm said:
I think until the range is 350+ miles on a decent sized car whilst being competitively priced with their internal combustion counterparts, EVs can be safely ignored.

80 miles (lol at 80 miles to a "tank")? No thanks.
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I think thats close to impossible without either the development phase we have now with early adopters and some grant money, or a government funded R&D initiative and manufacturing money to get the volumes up to where they need to be.

Big weight issues and consumption penalty with carrying around 350 miles worth of capacity at the moment aswell as being about to refill that each night anyway from home. (30 hr charge time on a 3kW charger).

Again it highlights the suitablility of the PHEV concept though - makes the cars prett fast aswell ;)
 
You don't need research, you need industry to agree battery pack and fixing standards and have garages. It's not hard and already demonstrated.
 
Electric vehicles will only take off after we get both vastly increased range (>150 miles minimum, preferably >250 miles) as well as swappable batteries (and the infrastructure) to allow instant 'recharging'.

My general usage for a car is ~75 miles per day commuting to/from work so the 80 mile range may just about work, assuming it ALWAYS gets 80, which it wouldn't :p

Then I might go to my dads which is ~90 miles away so a bit too far, but with a swappable battery could be done, one swap each way is a bit nasty though...

Or my mums at ~180 miles, 2 swaps each way, possibly 3 on the return trip if I drive around a bit whilst I'm there, that's just not doable when even my mr2 which 'only' does 200 miles on a tank will do the same round trip with just one trip to the petrol station.

Plug-in hybrids make far more sense, if only they made any that were any good but that's another argument :p
 
AcidHell2 said:
You don't need research, you need industry to agree battery pack and fixing standards and have garages. It's not hard and already demonstrated.
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Yes you do for the context i was speaking in.

Research to establish charge algorithms, research to develop batter moniter systems, rearch into electrodes and cathode to improve power and energy, research in power and heat management.

Full range of issues on the manufacturer and build of the components aswell.

I was talking about the car to meets Paradigm attributes not the better battery sysem which is already in place - i suggest you dont try patenting your idea ;)

When is 'your' pantogram idea going to come up again on this subject?
 
SKILL said:
Electric vehicles will only take off after we get both vastly increased range (>150 miles minimum, preferably >250 miles) as well as swappable batteries (and the infrastructure) to allow instant 'recharging'.
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Im so confused by this when I see it.

The critism is often charge time. So if you get to the 250 miles why do you also need 'instant' recharging aswell as swappable batteries?
 
Robbie G said:
I'm going to invent a fusion reactor the size of an AA battery folks. Will I be rich?
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Good luck with that! :D
I think we're all looking in the wrong place. I think we need to create a car from a living organism, just give it some wheat/ food or whatever, some water and it will use its tissue to drive the car?

I have no idea what I'm talking about, really we just need to find a much more efficient way of storing large quantities of electrical energy. Battery tech gets more advanced every year, until we discover something like fusion cells or some malark. Then we're sorted.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
I was talking about the car to meets Paradigm attributes not the better battery sysem which is already in place - i suggest you dont try patenting your idea ;)

When is 'your' pantogram idea going to come up again on this subject?
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you what and you what.
My idea? And what the he'll is a pantogram.

Fast battery swap will give the 350mile range and. Plenty more onto of. That with no research.
 
Robbie G said:
Of course not, as batteries won't last that long. The equivalent electric capacity of a 10 gallon tank is like 50 gallons...not many cars have 230 litre fuel tanks.
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How many gallons do they have then? 2? So it can do 350mpg on a 2 gallon tank, with the battery fully charged?

I drove for 500 miles yesterday and had a 6 hour sleep this morning. I am not functioning as I normally should. :p
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Im so confused by this when I see it.

The critism is often charge time. So if you get to the 250 miles why do you also need 'instant' recharging aswell as swappable batteries?
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What about when I'm off to Spa for the F1 race at the end of next month, I'll be going the 180 miles to my mums, staying overnight (so let's assume we could fully charge a 250 mile range vehicle overnight) and then 300 miles to Spa, oops we've just run out...

Or I feel like going up to scotland, nope can't do that,

250 mile range would negate the need for instant charging/swappable-ness in most cases I agree, but not all and what's the alternative, have an expensive electric vehicle that will work 'most' of the time and then either own or hire a petrol vehicle on the odd occasion when the electric car can't cope? or massively change the trip because of the failings of the car? or just stick with a petrol car (or plug-in hybrid) that just works...
 
SKILL said:
What about when I'm off to Spa for the F1 race at the end of next month, I'll be going the 180 miles to my mums, staying overnight (so let's assume we could fully charge a 250 mile range vehicle overnight) and then 300 miles to Spa, oops we've just run out...

Or I feel like going up to scotland, nope can't do that,

250 mile range would negate the need for instant charging/swappable-ness in most cases I agree, but not all and what's the alternative, have an expensive electric vehicle that will work 'most' of the time and then either own or hire a petrol vehicle on the odd occasion when the electric car can't cope? or massively change the trip because of the failings of the car? or just stick with a petrol car (or plug-in hybrid) that just works...
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Stick the car on the EV train that you can get to the station with.

Park on it, sleep and charge, get off at the other end.

Sorted :p Its a more likely idea than even trying to do that in a Gen 2 EV. Fast charging a battery is not good for it. Nissan only recommend once a week at a push for the Leaf.
 
SKILL said:
250 mile range would negate the need for instant charging/swappable-ness in most cases I agree, but not all and what's the alternative, have an expensive electric vehicle that will work 'most' of the time and then either own or hire a petrol vehicle on the odd occasion when the electric car can't cope? or massively change the trip because of the failings of the car? or just stick with a petrol car (or plug-in hybrid) that just works...
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it'll start of with low milage people and families/people who own two cars. That will bring the investment and numbers needed to extend it to the harder markets, by allowing fast swap garages. It'll take some time, but I have no doubt that this is the start and slough the first couple of generations will not meet everyone needs, that eventually it will.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Stick the car on the EV train that you can get to the station with.

Park on it, sleep and charge, get off at the other end.

Sorted :p Its a more likely idea than even trying to do that in a Gen 2 EV. Fast charging a battery is not good for it. Nissan only recommend once a week at a push for the Leaf.
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huh, maybe I'm missing something but that just doesn't make sense? :p

AcidHell2 said:
it'll start of with low milage people and families/people who own two cars. That will bring the investment and numbers needed to extend it to the harder markets, by allowing fast swap garages. It'll take some time, but I have no doubt that this is the start and slough the first couple of generations will not meet everyone needs, that eventually it will.
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It'll have to be, but people who do solely low mileage are quite rare I believe, which kinda leaves just 2-car families (individuals with 2 cars = fun + boring, boring could be replaced by electric but it's not like the fun car is any better at long trips :p) and are 2-car families willing to spend a lot of money on their 'second' car, or would they generally go for the significantly cheaper petrol/diesel/hybrid option?

I agree with you that it will get there, I just think you might be overestimating just how long it will take, I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years time even hybrids were still outnumbered by petrol/diesel cars, let alone pure EV's...
 
Underestimate? I think in 5 years ev will still be a niche product, not just outnumbered but a tiny portion. But with an ever increasing sales %.
 
AcidHell2 said:
Underestimate? I think in 5 years ev will still be a niche product, not just outnumbered but a tiny portion. But with an ever increasing sales %.
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In that case then I agree entirely, I was assuming that things like "start of the electric revolution" were that it would happen sometime 'soon' :p
 
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